Budget
5 Questions: How to Win Friends and Influence Luddites
Ed. Note: As we prepare for the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference, we wanted share a wee bit of the wisdom our speakers will be serving up, so as not to overwhelm you when you get to Atlanta. We're asking them all to share their answers to five very important questions.
Speaker: Peter Campbell, Earthjustice
Session: The Tech Track
1. What's the most important trend in nonprofit technology for 2010?
It's cloud computing, hands down. I know, I know: Social media! Online fundraising! All well and good, but those are evolutionary trends, cloud computing is a revolutionary trend. As it matures, it will remove the frustrating burden of managing servers and applications from our under-resourced organizations and allow IT to focus on tying systems to strategy, not just keeping the six year old systems alive. That's a really big deal.
The Overhead Question: What's Our Role?
Flickr Photo: tylerdurden1Ask any nonprofit to describe how they feel about their overhead percentage, and you're most likely to be met with groans, sighs and rolls of eyes. None of us like the fact that the percentage of income we spend on "overhead" is the primary measure of our effectiveness.
The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle aptly summarized the problem with the overhead measure this summer. Then, in December, some of the sector's top rating agencies, including Guidestar and Charity Navigator, agreed that a new measure is needed.
